The last time we saw a real contender from Palm they were trying to make waves (with the Pre) at a time when Blackberry was still popular and the premier business phone, the iPhone was still an AT&T exclusive device, Motorola was the king of Android in the United States with the Droid line, HTC was actually living up to “quietly brilliant”, and Samsung was getting started with the Galaxy line. So when I read rumors about a possibility that Palm could be getting back in the game I began to ponder if now was the right time
Some would argue that the Palm Pre was ahead of the game, despite not getting the same reactions that Android, Apple, and (even) Blackberry was receiving at the time. But at a time when some may want something different other than Android and Apple, Palm could provide that breath of fresh air to challenge the market. The challenge is going to be how are they going to be able to provide a suitable enough app store that will be on the playing field as Apple’s App Store and the Google Play store. Failure to do that and it will quickly go the way of the Windows phone.
I see this phone being built on Android, similar to what Blackberry is doing, so customers have access to a number of apps and services on sign in. Hopefully if Palm go this route they do a good enough job with the skin and UI to make it distinguishable from the other Android phones on the market. It is going to be interesting to see how this rumor plays out.
